Labels

Monday, August 26, 2013

Sony Xperia M - A modern low cost 4-inch Android smartphone

Sony has launched the low cost Xperia M handset in the Philippines. While the Sony Xperia M comes in both single and dual SIM models, the current offering is the single SIM version. The dual SIM version will be following in a month or so.

The Sony Xperia M is a nice compact phone. Priced at Php10,490 it will not win any value for money contests compared it to the local brands or smaller Chinese manufacturers, but a very good choice if you want a branded phone. The Sony Xperia M has a reasonable sharp 4-inch FWVGA (480 x 854) display. Inside you will find a dual core Krait processor using the Qualcomm MSM8227 Plus chipset. This is the same chipset you find on the Nokia Lumia 520, 620 and 720 handsets.

This chipset is one of the newer power efficient 28 nanometer chipsets. You also get HSPA+, Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC. At the back is a 5 MP camera. While modest by todays standards, it does come with software image stabilization, HDR and panorama functions. Move on to the side of the phone, and shutterbugs will be happy to find a dedicate camera button. Powering all this is a large 1750 mAh battery. The Sony Xperia M wont be making it to my top phone charts which is heavily biased to value for money options. But the Xperia M is a very well rounded package which should be a good choice for someone looking for a well made, well balanced, compact smartphone.

At 4 inches it's relatively small, e.g. iPhone size; social folks who wanted an iPhone could get this instead for a third of the price and still get the hipster feeling since it's a Sony.

Its internals comprising of a dual core Krait with 1 GB RAM is decent enough except for one glaring thing: the internal storage. I can't believe Sony is thinking that 4GB is appropriate for something worth over 10k. They should take a cue from Nokia and have 8GB minimum across their Xperia lineup.

Overall the Xperia M is indeed a decent low cost phone coming from Sony. If it was priced at 9k I'd recommend for it to become a wildcard for your entry-level smartphones list together with or even replacing the Lumia 520, but at 10.5k (11k for the dual SIM variety) it's as if they're not letting you forget for a moment that Sony is a premium brand.